


Let Somepony Love You (Before It's Too Late)

by Quillamore



Category: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reality Shows Ruin Families, Scootaloo's Parents Are More Terrible Than Normal, Shared Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-29 00:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillamore/pseuds/Quillamore
Summary: Years after the events of The Last Crusade, Scootaloo's parents have a successful reality show--and they've made it clear that the only reason they wanted Scootaloo to come to Shire Lanka with them was because families attract viewers.  Their abandonment has left her a depressed, teenaged shell of herself--until she finds herself in Manehattan with somepony who understands parental betrayal better than she could have ever imagined.





	Let Somepony Love You (Before It's Too Late)

_When Scootaloo was young, she had loved dinosaurs more than anything. She’d stay at the library until it closed, reading about raptors and ancient dragons and all the creatures that once roamed Equestria. Every time a new dinosaur movie came to the theater, she’d see it multiple times. Her personal favorite had been one about a museum in Manehattan, because even though the T-Rex might have just been a skeleton in that one, it could come alive with a single streak of moonlight. In those days, Luna had been gone so long that everything about the moon was a mystery, and for all Scootaloo knew, things like that could really happen._

_Those had been the thoughts she’d had when her parents came to town when she was six, and all she wanted them to do was see the museum movie with her. Life was happy for a while, for an hour and a half plus previews. And then, after the magic ended, her parents picked the movie apart, everything it got wrong and all the reasons Scootaloo shouldn’t like such frivolous things._

_It hadn’t been the first time, or the last, that Scootaloo’s parents had let her down. But it was the first one that really stuck out like a nail to her heart. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but she learned that day that her parents would never understand the things she loved. And so she stopped—stopped watching her silly dinosaur movies, stopped going to the library, stopped caring until she met the Cutie Mark Crusaders._

_When Scootaloo was young, she’d also write letters. She was careful not to get too excited about anything for fear that her parents would dismiss it, but everything else was fair game. Her school, her friends, how much she missed them. The letters back always came packed with adventure, and her parents were always as loving as they had failed to be that day, for a while._

_Eventually, she branched out, writing letters to other ponies. One in particular, in Manehattan, made up the bulk of them. She knew it was silly, writing to Babs when Apple Bloom probably already told her all the same stuff, but somehow, it made her happy. At first, Scootaloo had thought it was because she didn’t have to filter herself around Babs, but she later realized the answer was something else._

_She almost hated the other filly for it, really. Why did Babs’ letters always come back, when her parents’ only got lost in the mail?_

It’s not their fault it can’t be their fault.

_The illusion cracked just after Scootaloo got her cutie mark. All the signs were there. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did._

It is their fault it has to be their fault.

_And once she saw the truth, all she could do was wish for her innocent life of dinosaurs and letters again._

****

Scootaloo’s mane flapped in the breeze as she boarded a Manehattan cab, the windy climate making it even more unruly than it already was. Most ponies cut their manes when grief struck them, but Scootaloo always figured she was never one to go with the trends. She’d grown it out a little over the years, let some of it cover her eyes so ponies wouldn’t have to see her cry. Even though she’d gotten more in the habit of that, ponies in her hometown still saw her as a tough filly, even more so after the news broke months after her parents left.

About _why_ they left.

Even now, far from Ponyville, Scootaloo could still see the advertisements doppling the Manehattan commercial landscape. The Shire Lanka move had been a sham, nothing more. Her parents had accumulated enough popularity over the years to merit a series of weekly documentaries, a new idea the filmmakers behind the project called a “reality show.” It was supposed to follow them through the Shire Lanka landscape with their daughter, a mysterious figure many of their followers wondered about. It had sounded nice enough when the first episode released--Scootaloo even saw it at the theater on its opening day. But ponies began to wonder where the famous couple’s daughter was, and everything began to fall apart.

As it always did when ponies began to wonder. As a pony who’d lived on her own for so long, Scootaloo knew that fact better than most, and even she hadn’t been prepared for the answer.

Scandal broke out within a few weeks of the show’s premiere, and Scootaloo learned that in the real world, ponies weren’t so fond of other ponies who left their children behind in faraway places. Eventually, after enough goading, her parents gave interviewers the answer she had never wanted to hear--they didn’t leave her behind because they valued her skills. They left her behind because they decided they could run the show better without her.

They’d abandoned her before, sure. But the last time they were in Ponyville, it felt like they had genuinely changed. As the news continued to flow throughout Equestria, Scootaloo would learn that, too, was an act. They had never read her letters. They had stopped caring about her years ago, and would be happy to forget she existed. Her only function to them had been as a marketing gimmick, a nice little story to tell their fellow adventurers. And when that didn’t pan out? They didn’t come back, not even when the Shire Lanka government drove them out.

As it turned out, even ponies on the other end of Equestria weren’t fond of ponies who neglected their children. Her parents got a new documentary deal, in a new place, within weeks--even with the scandal, or perhaps because of it, it had still done well enough to merit another season, in another place.

The name of their latest faraway location blared in her eyes from the massive moving billboard in front of her, but Scootaloo could care less. They certainly didn’t care about her, and it didn’t matter whether they had become that way after they’d sold out, or if their hearts had been cold even before that. That, at the very least, wouldn’t change.

So why should she bother trying to change herself for them anymore?

This trip, in her eyes, was the greatest evidence she could possibly have of that, the ultimate rebellion. It was as simple as boarding this taxi, stopping at the nearby natural history museum, and finally seeing the dinosaur that had formed her fillyhood dreams. Or at least, it should have been that simple.

About an hour into her excursion, Scootaloo was barely paying attention to the exhibits around her. She felt terrible about it, considering the somewhat high admission price and the years of time and effort that had went into constructing this place, but when it came down to it, she’d never really been interested in anything other than dinosaurs and dragons. Everything else in the museum, from the dioramas to the herbal displays to the gemstones, were just things her parents had tried to get her interested in, reminders that even if they were so willing to dispose of her, there was at least a small part of them that had wanted her to follow in their hoofsteps. Just being there felt like a cross between a field trip and a guilt trip.

And so she wandered through the exhibits, vacantly staring at the various items in front of her without reading the signs. When she bored of that, she pony-watched for a while, wondering just how different Manehattan ponies really were. From the way her aunts had practically begged her to tag along on this trip, she felt they almost had to be landmarks in and of themselves.

Scootaloo couldn’t recall what exhibit she’d been in when she finally saw somepony she recognized--something so terribly boring that it made her wonder if Twilight had any sleeping spells in her arsenal. She figured she’d just whiz through it and move onto the next location, until she saw her.

Babs Seed.

With a _baby_ on her back. A baby _unicorn_. At age _fourteen_.

The pegasus turned away as soon as the two seemed to lock eyes, praying to Celestia that Babs hadn’t noticed her. As curious as the situation was, if Babs hadn’t mentioned it in one of her previous letters, Scootaloo knew not to pry. The Manehattan mare had gotten herself into enough sticky situations that she’d practically earned this sort of privacy by default. While her friend didn’t know all the details, Scootaloo knew that Babs had been in the foster care system for awhile and had only recently been adopted out. The two had a good laugh about how everypony had suspected Scootaloo was the one in that situation and stopped talking about it shortly after. And tried talking about it again, and changed the subject again, over and over.

To be safe, Scootaloo inched towards the pavilion’s exit, since she could barely stand another minute in that muted, mundane room. However, just when she thought she was safe, her old friend cornered her, the same way she had back when they had first met and she was nothing more than a bully.

“Oh, I thought that was you!” Babs interjected, lightly tapping Scootaloo’s leg. 

While most ponies tended to touch their friends’ flanks to get their attention, Babs always went for the legs. Scootaloo had made the mistake of bumping her flank against Babs’ when they first met, and the first thing out of the latter’s mouth after the float incident had been, “We can be friends as long as you never touch me there again.” Like any friend, Scootaloo had wondered about it, tried to follow up on it and the barely visible scars that framed her fellow Crusader’s flank. But Babs had changed the subject, like always, like she had every time somepony tried to get too close to her.

“I--I’m really sorry!” Scootaloo replied. “I didn’t mean to stare! I was just surprised, that’s all. I don’t even think there’s anything wrong with you being a teen mom!”

The minute she said that, she could feel the air pressure rising, as if a tornado had just touched down in the room. Even though everypony had probably gone quiet because they were too focused on the exhibit, it still felt like they’d all heard her. Similarly, Babs gave her an odd look and stared her down for several seconds before breaking into a loud burst of laughter.

“Please, where could I even find a unicorn my age in this city? And let me tell ya, if this was my kid, do you honestly think I would name him somethin’ like ‘Trailblazer?’ I love my ‘rents, but that’s gotta be the stupidest name they could have come up with.”

WIth a quick blow of her mane, she continued, “Anyway, I had no clue you were gonna be here, honest. I mean, I knew you said you wanted to see this in the letter, but I came ‘cause I thought somethin’ like this would be good for Blazer to see. It’ll make him smarter or somethin’. I dunno, I’m still tryin’ to figure out this whole big sis thing.”

“Aren’t we all?” Scootaloo replied, trying her best to mimic Babs’ signature move.

Babs just stared at her confusingly, paying her more attention than any of the displays surrounding her. At first, once Scootaloo noticed this, nothing seemed strange about it, but as the day passed and revelations were made, she’d come to realize that this was no accident.

“You don’t even have any siblings, you dork.”

“Which is exactly why I’m still trying to figure it out.”

“Touche.”

The two broke out into an immense burst of laughter, the type they often shared when Babs used to visit Ponyville. However, they realized their surroundings far too late, and they received death glares from at least ten ponies.

“Oh, right,” said Babs. “This probably isn’t the best place for us to catch up. I take it you’ve seen everything you need to see here?”

Scootaloo simply nodded, already anticipating the events that were sure to await her. She’d learned early in her life that every moment Babs Seed was in her life was a moment of adventure. Somehow, even though the Manehattan mare had absolutely nothing in common with Scootaloo’s parents, that was the one thing they shared.

Scootaloo could only hope that Babs wouldn’t abandon her like they had.

****

None of the restaurants around the museum were particularly affordable, so the three boarded a cab the first chance they got. Babs insisted on a Manehattan pizza place that, in her own words, “you’ve just gotta try,” and Scootaloo tried her best to avoid the huge advertisements for her parents’ show. By the time they had almost reached the pizzeria, Babs had gotten the picture and decided to avert her friend’s attention to another ad.

Scootaloo only got a small glimpse of the huge billboard, but she’d seen it enough times to know exactly what it was for. A group of unicorns huddled into groups of two, almost as if they were preparing for battle. Printed lasers criss-crossed across the ad, and all in all, it looked like the sort of thing just about every Canterlot college student would have in their dorm. By Tartarus, they probably _did_\--in its three years of performances, _Spellshock_ was already one of the most popular plays in Manehattan, and nopony would ever shut up about it. 

Least of all, its opening night, when it was rumored that a prominent pony around town climbed on stage during intermission to accuse a local celebrity of unspeakable acts. The legends around the _Spellshock_ opening often outpaced the facts, but what Scootaloo did know for certain was it had created enough of a stir to make the cops show up.

“I think my aunts won tickets to that,” Scootaloo said. “They already planned on coming here for some quilting conference, but they signed up for this Bridleway lottery thing. I can’t remember which tickets they ended up getting, but I hope it’s not that new biography one. _The Life and Times of a Slimy Producer_, or whatever. What a snooze-fest.”

Babs scoffed and rolled her eyes in the most disgusted show Scootaloo had ever seen from her.

“Do not talk to me about _Stolen Orange_,” muttered Babs. “That play is so unauthorized, it isn’t even funny. Literally nopony wanted it. If you actually end up going to that shitshow and liking it, we can’t be friends.”

“Something tells me that isn’t going to happen,” replied Scootaloo, rolling her eyes. “But anyway, what’s up with _Spellshock_? I assume your mom still works on it?”

Babs didn’t talk much about her family in her letters, but from what Scootaloo knew, her mother was a famous costume designer who’d gotten her big break with Spellshock. Scootaloo herself had only met the mare, Coco Pommel, once, when she’d come to Ponyville to get to know her foster daughter’s friends. That meeting had been the closest Scootaloo had come to finding out the truth about her friend’s past, as Coco had claimed that she had found Babs as a filly living in one of her supplier’s factories. When she’d first heard it, it had seemed a little far-fetched, but considering the barely visible scars on Babs’ flank, she could just imagine a bunch of unscrupulous Manehattan types working Babs near to death and whipping her when she didn’t.

Lost in thought, Scootaloo almost didn’t hear Babs’ response, but the excited look on her face told it all.

“Not _just_ my mama,” Babs explained. “She worked her tail off bein’ a single mother, and swore she’d never raise another foal without a special somepony in her life. She hit it off with the director years ago, and they finally tied the knot not long ago. Before Blazer was born, obviously.”

While Scootaloo couldn’t claim to know the Bridleway scene, her aunts were avid enough fans that just being around them gave her some knowledge of the plays and their inner workings. She didn’t know many directors, but _Spellshock’s_ was practically a household name at this point. A bright blue unicorn stallion who’d made a name for himself off-Bridleway, climbed up to the top, and fired his producer once he’d had enough power to stop putting up with him. The rare type of risk-taker with real staying power.

“_Scene Stealer_ is your dad?!” Scootaloo blurted out, sounding a little more excited than she should about hearing this. “How did I not hear about this?”

“I don’t see the big deal. Your parents are celebrities, too, y’know?”

The minute Babs said this, a shudder of dread went down Scootaloo’s spine. She knew what happened to celebrity children, and her judgement had lapsed for just long enough to forget. 

“But it’s okay. Don’t look so scared about it. He’s a good guy, not like your parents. My last father figure, on the other hoof, was just as famous and just as terrible. I didn’t wanna trouble you before by tellin’ you anything about it, but I feel like it’s what you need now.”

And then, in that moment, Scootaloo heard the words she’d always wanted to hear and the ones she’d never wanted to hear. The ones she’d wanted to hear from a stranger, and not from a friend.

“I know what you’re going through. Because I’ve been there, too.”

****

To Scootaloo’s immense surprise, Babs picked what was probably the most busy part of the restaurant to lay everything on her. The two had gone up to the counter, ordered a few slices of pizza from the deliciously greasy display, and went straight out into the open. In fact, the seat Babs selected seemed to be the only one close to so many ponies, as everypony else seemed fairly spread out.

As she trotted towards the very public, not at all private restaurant booth, the cashier gave Babs a look of recognition, one that the mare herself brushed off as if she got recognized all the time. Any other time, Scootaloo would have assumed it was simply because her friend was a regular at this place, but for all she knew, the day could certainly get even weirder.

“Seriously,” Scootaloo scoffed, trying to lighten the mood, “you actually like pineapple on pizza? That’s just disgusting.”

“You’ve got it all mixed up! It obviously tastes like shit when you put it on deep dish, but it’s a slice of heaven with Manehattan style. It’s all in the crust!”

Babs stabbed her slice in satisfaction with a plastic fork, the way she said everypony in Manehattan ate their ridiculously thin pizza. She made a clearly exaggerated swallowing sound and stared at Scootaloo just afterwards. The bluff was over.

“Anyway, welcome to the ‘neglected by a famous parental figure’ club! I’d love to say I wanted new members, but I really didn’t. But for a little bit more, we can throw in the full abuse package. I’ve been there, and I don’t recommend it at all!” 

For probably the first time since the original bullying incident, Scootaloo truly feared Babs Seed. Not only was she acting absolutely erratic, but she was doing so loud enough for everypony in the room to hear. Oddly enough, she didn’t get any weird stares, but Scootaloo suspected they were staying away from the unhinged mare for their own safety.

Thankfully, Babs was able to read the room just as well as her companion could. She cleared her throat a few minutes into the moment of awkward silence and took another sip of her pop.

“Joking about it helps me cope. At least, that’s what my therapist says. You should probably look into getting one yourself, just sayin’.”

“Okay, fine, but could you tone it down a bit? Everypony can hear!”

“I don’t give a damn. They’ve read it all in the papers. I was the tragedy of the month when everythin’ first came out. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”

Everything about Babs, from her face to her twitching tail, told Scootaloo she wasn’t surprised at all.

“If it’s this big, why’d you keep me out of the loop like this?”

Babs let out a long sigh, almost as if she was drowning in desperation.

“Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle got looped into it ‘cause of their connections. Rarity knew my mama, and Applejack knew both me and my abuser. I didn’t want to drag any more friends into my issues, okay?”

Something about that explanation didn’t sit right with Scootaloo, but she figured she might as well let it slide for now. Partly out of pure curiosity, and partly because she knew that deep down, Babs had to have a good reason for keeping this from her.

“So this happened when Applejack and Rarity kept going down to Manehattan? I always assumed they were workin’ on the boutique.”

“You weren’t the only one,” Babs replied. “Most ponies didn’t know what all they were doin’ out here until the trial happened. Coco and them didn’t want me to go for my own safety, but from what I hear, it got pretty intense.”

Scootaloo did a double take after hearing this, to the point where her head nearly hit the modern-looking silver booth divider. She thanked the stars above she didn’t have a slice of pizza in her mouth at that time because, by golly, it would have fallen halfway to Ponyville from all the shock of the situation.

“Wait, wait, back up,” said Scootaloo, crossing her front hooves together in an ‘X’ shape. “Trial? Tragedy of the month? What were you even involved in?!”

“More like, what was Mosely Orange involved in? Yeah, quick warning: if you wanna see that lame play about him and the shady producer shit he was dealin’ out, you don’t wanna hear any of this. But since you don’t, I’ll give you the short version--he was supposed to take care of me when my parents were outta commission, and obviously, he didn’t. I mean, we wouldn’t be talkin’ here if our famous ‘rents didn’t throw us under the bus, right?”

Scootaloo simply nodded, getting the feeling that Babs was going to need a lot of space to discuss this. It’d be best, she thought, if she just let her go into this story. 

“Anyway, I found out about it all ‘bout five years ago,” continued Babs. “Long after I’d moved onto another family and another life. For the love of Celestia, I wouldn’t have even heard about it if my mama hadn’t worked with Mosely, and that was the way he wanted it. Weird, right? They leave you behind, but they still want ya to care about them.”

The crowds were starting to disperse as the lunch rush ended, and Babs’ cryptic statements could be heard loud and clear. Oddly enough, the more Scootaloo could hear of the conversation, the more it started to actually be comprehensible. Granted, saying she _understood_ it was still taking it a bit too far. It was much more like the advertisements she saw at the movie theater, talking about how the new speakers had clearer sounds. It wasn’t like they made Prench films any more comprehensible, even if she could hear them--just like this.

Even then, there was one thing in that exchange she could understand. One she could relate to almost too much.

“Tell me about it. Mine were the same way.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

With a quick sigh, Babs continued her conversation with a strangely casual gleam coming into her eyes. Scootaloo didn’t realize then, but her words were soon about to contradict that look, just like what would happen if Scootaloo were to watch that Prench film dubbed, with the words mismatching the movements.

“I thought he was a real stand-up guy, y’know? So did everypony else. So even when I was with my mama, when I should have been happy, I missed him. What a mistake that was.

“The first sign I got that he was bad news was when he started hangin’ around my mama. I’d never seen him with a mare before, but it turns out he was terrible with them. Terrible to them, I should say. Mama ended up in the hospital before too long, ‘cause he dated her while he was working her half to death. Even then, I still thought he’d just gone rotten, that he could change.”

“But he didn’t. He was always the same.”

Scootaloo didn’t know all the details, but she knew the story. How she could have known somepony who’d had such similar experiences to her own, she had no clue. Just hearing all this was nothing short of startling, like she’d somehow dodged an even worse bullet than the one her parents had dealt.

“Did he ever really care?” Scootaloo asked.

“Did they?” Babs replied.

From there, the answers came as rapid-fire as the bullets their parent figures had dished out. 

“They just saw me as a ticket to fame.”

“He only saw me as an illegitimate child.”

Back and forth, strike after strike.

“They stopped caring when a better chance came along.”

“He stopped caring once he found out I came from his ex marrying somepony from a shady family.”

They could do this forever.

“Their show meant more than me.”

“His jealousy meant more than me.”

Every time the bullets rained on them, their vests stopped them in their tracks. 

“But it’s okay. They’re off traveling across Equestria, so they’ll never cross me again.”

“It’s okay,” Babs repeated. “He’s in prison for foal trafficking, so he’ll never cross me again.”

It was the only way to keep them from breaking.

“Wait,” Scootaloo interrupted. “What did you just say?”

Princesses above, this was the second time today that Babs Seed had shocked her to her absolute core, and it wasn’t even two p.m.! At this rate, the brown mare was bound to give her a heart attack by the end of the day, if not worse.

“Look, I know it ain’t an easy thing to hear. It’s still fresh in your mind, y’know? But take it from me, it’s all gonna be okay, and--”

It took everything Scootaloo had not to slam her face against the hard metallic table.

“Are ya kiddin’ me? You think that’s the hardest part of this conversation, and not, oh I don’t know, the fact that your former caretaker got arrested on a bucking federal crime?! What in Tartarus did he even do to you?!”

As the words came out, Scootaloo couldn’t help but feel a little shocked herself. Sure, she liked to think she would have reacted the same way if anypony had told her that, but with Babs...even though she lived so far away…

It still hurt like all of Tartarus was crashing down on her.

“It’s probably not as bad as you’re thinkin’,” answered Babs, her voice shaking for the first time in this whole conversation. “Sure, I’ve got mental and physical scars to show for it, but I didn’t end up as bad as some of the foals who got caught up in other schemes. Mosely paid them to kidnap me, get me as far away from him as possible, which means I didn’t get moved around much. I was just confined to the one factory, and that’s all I really did for years.”

Her hooves scraped the table nervously after saying this, as if she’d only told Scootaloo a mildly embarrassing secret. Scootaloo, on the other hand, felt flame bursting through her the minute Babs stopped talking.

Was she still mad at Babs for not telling her earlier? Tartarus, yes. But for now, there was something about the situation that made her blood boil even more.

“You didn’t get off light,” Scootaloo mumbled, barely able to voice the feelings rushing through her.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you didn’t get off light, Babs! Not by a long shot!”

By the time Scootaloo realized she was as loud as Babs had been before, she didn’t even care. She was going to beat this into her friend’s head hard enough to break her skull.

“I don’t give a shit if other ponies have been through worse! That doesn’t make your suffering any better, okay? That didn’t give him any more of a right to do it. They may not have humiliated you in that way, but that didn’t stop them from doin’ it in other ways, got it?”

For once, Scootaloo was the one to leave Babs speechless. She wasn’t sure what reaction she expected from yelling at her friend, but the tears pooling by her eyes weren’t on the list. Neither were the tears streaming down Scootaloo’s own face.

“Damn, this is embarrassing,” the orange pegasus finally said after several minutes of pure silence.

“Tell me about it,” Babs said with a scoff. “Who woulda thought we’d start crying before the _baby_ did?”

Sure enough, Trailblazer seemed thoroughly unaffected by this tragic turn of events. Apparently, he was too transfixed by the ceiling fan above them to notice much of anything.

“Actually,” the brown mare continued, “that ain’t the only thing that’s embarrassing ‘bout this. I feel like I owe ya an explanation, and then I’ll let you do whatever you want. Sorry for makin’ all this ‘bout me.”

“It’s fine. I’m not really able to talk about my parents like that yet, anyway. What happened to you was so much worse, so I’m kinda impressed you can.”

Babs looked down at her flank, as if the answers to the world’s questions were contained in her cutie mark. Just thinking that made Scootaloo remember the days when she and Babs really thought that was the case.

“That’s kinda why I waited so long. The first year or so, I was a blubberin’ mess about it, and there was no way I wanted you to see me like that. You were the first pony in a long time who actually thought I was cool and tough instead of some charity case. And since you were super tough, I wanted to keep up that act around you. It’s weird how we tough fillies seem to have more issues than everypony else.”

Scootaloo nodded like there’d been no truer statement in the world. Yet something about this whole conversation still bugged her to her core. 

“You know I don’t care about any of that. You don’t need to hide anything from me, ‘cause I know you’ll always be just as strong as the pony I made friends with when I was a filly. You never needed to prove anything to me.”

Before she was able to say anything further, though, Babs unleashed her final bombshell, the one thing that surprised Scootaloo more than anything else. Not because it was tragic, or shocking, but because deep down, she’d believed it was nothing short of impossible.

“I knew all of that--I mean, I shoulda known, but--when you’ve been abandoned as much as I have, ya start thinkin’ about who the next pony to leave you behind’s gonna be. And if that pony woulda been you, I wouldn’t have been able to take it anymore. It was the one risk I couldn’t take.”

It should have been an arrow through Scootaloo’s heart, something she could relate to and understand more than anypony. The Crusaders were Babs’ lifeline, just like they were hers. But somehow, she couldn’t help but snag on the way Babs had said it, the way she’d never actually mentioned the Crusaders once. She sat in silence for what seemed like an endless moment, almost dreading the answer that she knew Babs would give.

She couldn’t make her parents stay. So why in Tartarus would somepony feel that way towards her, _any_ way towards her that wasn’t friendship or pity? That was just the way she was made. It had to be a misunderstanding, it had to be, it had to be, it had to be…

Except Babs was made like her. And that meant that whatever was predictable for normal ponies, was utterly unexpected for ponies like them.

“‘Cause when it comes down to it, we all wanna impress the ponies we love. And I don’t mean that like I mean it with the other Crusaders.”

Scootaloo had a feeling that no matter what Babs did, she’d never be able to pin the other mare down. Least of all right now, in that pizza shop in the early afternoon, saying the words Scootaloo had never expected to hear anyone except her aunts ever say again.

“I love you, Scootaloo. To be honest...I ain't even sure I remember a time when I haven’t.”


End file.
